Slate to Roll out Double X Blog for Chicks

Slate announces they're turning the site's The XX Factor blog for ladies into its own full-fledged, stand-alone "web magazine" for chicks called Double X. Between Elizabeth Spiers's impending "Maxim for women," Salon's Broadsheet, and Jezebel's caterwauling, in the coming months you won't be able to swing a stick online without hitting a vaginablog, it seems.

In the spirit of post-election adventure, Slate is starting to work on a new web magazine: Double X. A magazine by women but not just for women, Double X will spin out from our XX Factor blog, where we've started a conversation among women–about politics, sex, and culture–that both men and women enjoy listening in on. The new site will do all this and more. It will take the Slate and XX Factor sensibility and apply it to sexual politics, fashion, parenting, health, science, sex, friendship, work-life balance, and anything else you might talk about with your friends over coffee. We'll tackle subjects high and low with an approach that's unabashedly intellectual but not dry or condescending. The blog will be at the heart of the site, but we’ll also publish essays, reporting, and other features.

Also, they use the word "post-feminist." (Full disclosure: I'm a contributor to Slate's existing vaginablog.)

I’m not naming any names, but some of the rhetoric here is fancy talk for ‘bitch’.

I learned a lesson today: if you italicize the word “feminist,” it becomes a synonym for “bitch”!

I’m disappointed with the sarcasm. I felt my question was earnest and in no way meant as an insult or personal attack. I simply pointed out my own experiences and concerns vis a vis the various definitions of feminism.

I have a feeling you may have misunderstood the phrase “genetic fallacy”. That is term with a specific meaning in logic. Namely, it is a specific type of logical fallacy. Unfortunately, in this thread it can easily be misconstrued.

#21, there’s no doubt that the patriarchy hurts men, too, but in virtually every case it hurts women more. I’d be curious to see what you think are the social structures that favor women. I will bet most of them are superficial benefits that cover up larger disadvantages.

I’m probably their target audience, and I’m not going to read this. After a few forays into the bitchery of the existing blog on Slate, I have no desire to. It’s just women sniping at women, no matter how intellectually it seems to be framed. If I want to indulge in that kind of stuff, I’ll just hang out with my SILs.

And if I want opinions (I do!) I’d rather just read the comments section of most anything anyway. Anything geared solely for women pisses me off. I’m a PERSON.

i wouldn’t argue from privilege, as you get responses similar to #21. i don’t think it’s hard to see though, given the two population, which is generally considered the in-group and which is generally considered the “other”.

Successful movements are always broad-based. It might be opportunist appeasers who get the credit at the end, but it’s the radicals who get the ball rolling. You should meet some of the drag queens who rioted at Stonewall. You would be horrified by them, but they laid the foundation for even having a discussion about gay marriage.

Harsh feminists do what they have to do. And they don’t all live in places where basic women’s rights can be taken for granted (if you squint hard.) We should not eat our elders. We only get to fight with words because they were willing to do it with sharp sticks.

Takuan: I resent your implication that I’m somehow just another member of the “gland-having class”. I am, in fact, an individual who just happens to have glands, and I harbor no special loyalty or sympathy for my glanded peers over their silicon iPhone companions.

This is an interesting announcement (The XX Factor) and an interesting set of comments. I have been thinking about woman’s voice and presence in so many of the “news” blogs I read. Of course, as so many of the comments are anonymous it is difficult to really know who is saying what. But the general tone remains objectifying and demeaning to women so often that I wonder, “was anybody listening during the past 10, 50, 100 years?” Of course, maybe it is just the fearful cowards who are attracted to online anonymity and snarkiness but geez! So I find myself conflicted. I yearn for the voices of other women – sharing feminist view on events – yet I also regret that more women are not calling these assholes out in the general discussions. Yes, it can be tiring to be attacked as bitches and chicks and blondes and whiners. However, if women remove themselves and their perspectives from Slate’s main discussions, how will the XY’s of the house ever know that there is another way of looking at things? Maybe I am assuming that this is an either/or choice rather than contributing to both general discussions and XY discussions. Thoughts?

if women remove themselves and their perspectives from Slate’s main discussions

Actually, this was something I guess I hadn’t considered. I mean, Dahlia Lithwick’s regular coverage of court decisions isn’t going to move from Slate to some separate-but-equal blog, is it? That would be really awful. If all those female journalists retained their same positions at Slate, but also expanded their XX-blogging duties, that would be one thing. If they’re all being schlepped off somewhere else, it would be another, much suckier thing.

If we must look at groups rather than individuals, then I will have to take the position that women are, as a group, far better than men. This is probably because of my rampant heterosexuality and the insidious cultural programming of patriarchal America, but I don’t care!

I open doors and carry packages for women, I do not interrupt women when they are speaking regardless of what they are saying, and I pay more attention to women’s emotional needs than to those of men. I will vote for an equally qualified woman before a man. When the teams get divided up for a game I pick all the women to be on my team (my team is the skins, of course, not the shirts, whenever I can get away with it; because an unclothed, healthy female body engaged in joyful activity is the highest natural expression of beauty available to man). I prefer not to charge women for goods and services and I always pay for dinner. I ask women at the self-serve gas station if it’s OK for me to pump their gas for them. I walk on the street side of the sidewalk and I will climb a 100 foot industrial smokestack to rescue a panicked young lady (although that last nearly killed us both). I help old ladies cross the street, I take female hitch-hikers wherever they want to go, and I change tires for stranded female motorists.

I’m afraid the women around me will just have to deal with this oppression and objectification, it is a burden they will have to bear along with their beauty, perspicacity, superior color discrimination, and superior fine motor skills.

I presume the reason I don’t enjoy most so-called “chick lit” is because, being a man, I am genetically inferior. You think I’m kidding, but I’m not. We men are drones who exist to serve the purposes of women, mostly by fighting each other and providing transport for genetic material. Even celibate and gay men would not exist without women. Women are the source and wellspring of all human civilisation, happiness and art.

I am quite willing to apologize for my neanderthal viewpoint, of course. Well, I will apologize to women, that is, any men who don’t like my viewpoint can go piss up a rope.

Feminism creates a group based on gender. Feminism is sexist. Feminism is wrong. Q.E.D.

Yes, yes, a movement that tries to eliminate gender differences in society so that we don’t have to create groups based on gender is sexist and wrong. I guess if you fundamentally misunderstand feminism, then that’s correct.

arkizzle: I agree that all people should try to help end oppression, even if it’s not their own. In fact, I believe all people have a responsibility to do so, and should accept that responsibility.

But they don’t. It’s an unfortunate reality that when it comes to taking serious action, the vast majority of people are primarily interested in the oppressions that affect them. This isn’t ideal, but honestly, if you can get anyone interested in taking action against /any/ kind of oppression, it’s better than nothing.

Therefore, a movement which speaks primarily to women about women’s issues has a much better chance of being effective, because it organizes the people who have a significant stake in women’s rights.

The key thing that’s hard for people to swallow is that oppressed groups have to liberate themselves. Nobody else can do it for them. Other people can and should be supportive, but until women have the power to end their own oppression, the oppression isn’t really ended. Justice has just been “granted” by the people who are still in charge, and can be taken away just as easily. The same goes for black people or gay people.

LOL… I find this kinda a joke. who really thinks they can speak to “all” of any group of people? men, women, boys, or girls…
Call it what ever you want, do what ever you want with your blog… Just please don’t try to speak for anyone but yourself…
You are fully entitle to have your own views.
However claiming that you speak for others is WRONG.
There is no one size fits all in todays world.

Real men read the proceedings of the IEEE or books on design patterns. Hell, real women read those things too. If you can’t write a “Hello World” in at least one language and explain its significance in programming at large, you are very likely subhuman.

I’ll accept we’re all more or less equal, but we are by no means the same. Many of these differences do line up along race, class and gender. That part is obvious.

What I *don’t* understand, however, is why last night I dreamt I somehow killed another woman, because I was under the influence of drugs and gender changing hormones. It felt like I was sitting in limbo for hours (though dreams are actually much shorter than that) contemplating the inevitable jail sentence. Maybe I’ll write my own future-crime scifi punk novel one day.

According to the Lost Highway theory, it’s because you’ll never satisfy your wife the way her former co-stars in pornography could. But you prefer to remember things “your way”, not necessarily how they actually happened.

I’m sorry, Sekino, I guess I didn’t realize you were being so earnest.

You wrote that, “Many women are turned off by the often very vocal feminists who promote fear, resent and hatred against all men, make blanket statements about both genders, seek obvious double-standards and regard women who disagree as traitors.”

I spend a lot of time reading a lot of different feminist authors and talking with a lot of different feminists. I have seen people come at feminism from seven jillion angles, but none of them were the ones you described. I assumed that since you were basically reciting groundless stereotypes that you were being more snarky than earnest. If you were as earnest as you claim to be, I urge you to really examine if the things you’re describing are exactly what you’re describing.

I guess to put it another way, Sekino, a lot of people genuinely perceive a lot of feminists as man-haters. In reality, precious few feminists are. Most of the time I hear someone describing feminists as “promot[ing] fear, resent[ment] and hatred against all men,” it’s because they either don’t really understand what the feminists are saying or because they have a kneejerk reaction to any criticism of men’s roles in society.

The term “post-feminist” makes me roll my eyes so hard. I’ll be post-feminist in the post-patriarchy, as the saying goes.

I have to say that I’m not really a fan of the current incarnation of the XX Factor, which is sort of strange coming from someone who spends most of her free time reading feminist blogs. I love Dahlia Lithwick, but often the other contributors get on my nerves.

It’s not so much that I see it as women sniping at women, as PollyanaCowgirl puts it, but that at least half the contributors always come at the issues from a patriarchal viewpoint. And that’s fine, I guess, but why not just put that in the regular Slate format? Making it a women-only blog – and now magazine – seems to me to diminish so-called “women’s issues” as special cases which don’t and shouldn’t have any importance to men.

Post-feminism sounds like an important set of topics to discuss. Also, can I just say I like the sound of XX Factor better than VaginaBlog? For some reason, for which Eve Ensler would understand better than me, I just plain don’t like the word. But a chick blog about sex and politics and gender roles and whatever, this I like the sound of very much.

Um. Let me get this straight: Slate is spinning off The XX Factor as a a separate blog because there’s a shortage of really smart blogwriting by women that discusses “…sexual politics, fashion, parenting, health, science, sex, friendship, work-life balance, and anything else you might talk about with your friends over coffee”?

Maybe it’s an ad thing? I can imagine that advertisers which sell to women, and which until now have been doing their advertising in old media, would be used to placing their ads in separate, explicitly labeled women’s magazines, and might thus be looking for more of the same.

Yes, yes, a movement that tries to eliminate gender differences in society so that we don’t have to create groups based on gender is sexist and wrong. I guess if you fundamentally misunderstand feminism, then that’s correct.

I am aware that a lot of feminists, like yourself, are really ‘equalists’ and want justice regardless of gender. That’s awesome (I am an equalist too).

But it can’t be ignored that a lot of very intolerant, extremist feminists have hijacked the term and it seems that the other feminists refuse to acknowledge the damage it does to the movement’s accessibility and credibility.

A lot of people (good, intelligent, well-intentioned people) are uncomfortable with the ‘feminist’ label. The term is increasingly associated with misandry and double-standards and, no, it cannot be all blamed on men who misunderstand it. Many women are turned off by the often very vocal feminists who promote fear, resent and hatred against all men, make blanket statements about both genders, seek obvious double-standards and regard women who disagree as traitors.

I’ve had my arse handed to me enough times by self-labeled ‘feminists’ who claimed to care about my empowerment- based on my chromosomes- while in the same breath disregarding my right to adopt a different stance on sensitive issues. Very hypocritical and definitely not inviting.

Again: I know it is not all feminists and it is not what, from your definition, feminism is about. However, many active, vocal feminists out there obviously disagree with your definition or warp it beyond recognition.

Why aren’t the true feminists more outraged about people within their ranks muddying their cause and using their name to serve their own, self-serving, misguided agenda? These people are largely to blame for the definition getting broad, blurry and confusing and giving a sordid side to feminism.

Zuzu, the patriarchy is not a straw man. I don’t like “anything geared solely for women” either, but that’s because separate is never equal, and I don’t see the point of self-marginalization. It’s not because I “see myself as a person” rather than a woman. Of course I see myself as a person! Every woman I know sees herself as a person.

The relevant point is that persons of one gender are hugely overrepresented in our society’s power structure. Most of them see me as a woman rather than a person, and devalue me accordingly. They do the same to other women as well. That’s the patriarchy, and boy, is it ever not a straw man.

It is not sufficient that an explanation be logical. Logic is a good way to test propositions, but a badly flawed way to generate them.

Oh theyâ€™ve got women on TV
But I still ainâ€™t satisfied
Cause cooptationâ€™s all I see
And I still ainâ€™t satisfied

They call me Ms
They sell me blue jeans
Call it â€œWomenâ€™s Libâ€
Make it sound obscene
And I still ainâ€™t â€” woa, they lied
Cause I still ainâ€™t â€” woa, they lied
Still ainâ€™t satisified.

I keep thinkinâ€™ thereâ€™s some mistake
I still ainâ€™t satisfied
Cause every minute a woman gets raped
I still ainâ€™t satisfied

They say okay, put in a street light
But they lock us down, down, down
When we learn to street fight
And I still ainâ€™t â€” woa, they lied
Cause I still ainâ€™t â€” woa, they lied
Still ainâ€™t satisified.

women are unquestionably superior. Males invariably are so contaminated with nicotine, ethanol and other obnoxious substances that they require extensive changes of water and powerful marinades. Further, It is intensely annoying to be bombarded with “Yur doin’ it wrong” during the flensing and de-boning process. It’s as if the Y chromosome was linked to some presumed assumption of butchering competence. Stringy too.

zuzu is a hard individualist, and that’s the perspective from which he criticizes feminism. He doesn’t like the idea of putting people into groups based on gender, because he wants everyone to identify themselves and each other as individuals only.

This means that zuzu is on your side when you object to being stereotyped because of your gender (as in “You must be bad at math, you’re a girl.”), but he’ll object when you try to express a common identity with other people based on gender (as in “Women do twice the work for half the pay”).

This position is comfortable because of its logical and philosophical consistency: Sexism is putting people in a group based on gender. Sexism is wrong. Feminism is based around the idea that women are an oppressed group. Feminism creates a group based on gender. Feminism is sexist. Feminism is wrong. Q.E.D.

How simple and how irrelevant. Ideally, all of humanity could just forget about gender groupings and go on with our lives. But it’s very, very clear that the majority of people in power already identify women as a group, and already commit injustices which specifically affect that group. No amount of “de-gendering” or avoiding gender grouping on our part will change that. In fact, it will make it very difficult to change, because the only people likely to do much about gender-based oppression are those who suffer from it, and they happen to all be women. The only real hope for stopping oppression of women is to get all the women together so they can do something about it.

In short: the big problem isn’t sexism, it’s women being dumbed down, terrorized, domesticated, raped, and controlled. All of these things are inflicted through a system of sexism, yes, but if woman-centered sexism will counter that shit, then great, let’s use it. I’m less concerned with theoretical equality than I am with whether women in my community are being assaulted because the attackers know the authorities won’t do anything to defend the victim. Womens’ liberation by any means necessary.

I think everybody needs to stop using the definate article with patriarchy. “the patriarchy” makes it sound like there’s an actual secret cabal of men that sit around and plan out how to repress women. Patriarchal attitudes exist. “The patriarchy” doesn’t.